


you get what you give

by singalellaby



Series: There were four in the bed [1]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, OT4, things that were posted on tumblr first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 14:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singalellaby/pseuds/singalellaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’re going to need a bigger bed,” Jess says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you get what you give

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this fantastic, though NSFW fanart by the brilliant tardiscrash.](http://tardiscrash.tumblr.com/post/20339248787/welp-you-asked-for-it-lazy-colouring-is-lazy)

“We’re going to need a bigger bed,” Jess says.

“Our bed is already big,” Tony shoots back and then, because he’s competitive like that—“It’s the biggest bed, actually, possibly the biggest one ever, it’s _orgy_ sized.”

“Can we not say the o-word in front of Steve, please.” That’s Carol, placid and calm and surprisingly benevolent-looking when, really, all she’s doing is reading a Cosmo and using Steve as a pillow. She flicks a wrist to turn a page and Steve, to his credit, looks vaguely affronted.

“I think that, after months of this, we can all stop pretending that anything any of you say is going to scandalise me—,” he’s saying and, already, Jess knows that look in Tony’s eyes, in the same way that she knows Carol _likes_ teasing Steve this way, and the scary part is how automatic it is to elbow him in the ribs and send him a warning look.

“Not a challenge.” He pouts because, of course, smartest man she’s ever met who isn’t Reed fucking Richards and he still uses the facial expressions of a toddler when left to his own devices. She rolls her eyes at him. “He’s not your own personal barometer of lewdness that you get to play with whenever you get bored.”

“Then I was dragged into this under completely false promises and I want to use my exit clause.” His words have all the usual frenetic swiftness of Tony Stark, genius and billionaire, with a brain that moves faster than even his mouth ever could, but they’ve been doing this long enough now that she can finally see the softness behind the slick quality he has, the one that fills him up until he’s practically overfull whenever he looks at the rest of them. Jess’ eyes follow his to where Carol and Steve are sprawled over each other, bickering and bantering, and, fine, maybe Jess gets it as well. That too-full feeling. The one that always hovers on the edge of almost too much because it’s just so easy for them. Jess and Tony might be the oddities, but it’s Carol and Steve who had the fewest problems adjusting to this unconventional arrangement of theirs, whatever wholesome American dream vibe the rest of the world gets.

Jess reasons it’s because they’re the ones who actually trust that it might work. Because Steve trusts in the good in people, and Carol trusts that the good in people can always be better and, dammit, it has to be that because how else has Jess ended up here? She wouldn’t have chosen this, not of her own volition, except she’s always been Carol’s, the way that it’s automatic to think of Iron Man and Captain America in the same surge of neural electricity. And it’s easy for Steve and Carol, who are companionable and affectionate and capable of doing domestic things like working out how to use the waffle iron and crosswords and whose turn it is to pick up the coffee they go through at the typical and ridiculous rate of a household of superhumans, but it’s _not_ for Jess. 

…it’s not for Tony either. 

Jess never expected him to be the one to get that, the itchy, wary, ‘abort abort abort before you get in too deep, before you care too much’ sensation running rampant just under your skin, but he is. He, like her, isn’t easy to live with. The same way that she’s always tempted to run away from things, he’s always running towards something. And watching him watch the simplicity that is the way in which Carol and Steve make each other happy Jess gets him in a way that she didn’t before. A way that, in all honesty, she wouldn’t have ever been able to tell you that she’d wanted because she _hadn’t._

His gaze slants her way with that uncanny knack of his for sensing even the barest shred of attention tossed at him and he smirks, his lips lifting crookedly within the frame of his beard, and Jess meets his eyes as one difficult, complex, messy person to another. Because, no, she wouldn’t have chosen him, wouldn’t have chosen this, wouldn’t have chosen them, and yet Tony’s the one who automatically plants himself in the middle of the bed most nights, leaving her the space on the edge because he gets what it’s like to always need an escape route, even when you’re surrounded by loved ones. Carol and Steve cluster like golden retriever puppies and Tony enjoys spreading his arms and legs wide and declaring himself the don of superhero booty, but Jess likes it on the periphery, with the warmth and _offer_ of comfort there if she wants it, and Carol’s hand on her hip like an anchor, like an open door and she can’t tell you precisely when it started to be okay for Tony’s hand to rest with surprising lightness on the curve of her thigh as well…

Jess loves Carol Danvers because she always has. Jess loves Steve Rogers because who doesn’t? But Jess loves Tony Stark in ways that she won’t ever admit out loud because he gets it, feeling like the person who might be the one to ruin this.

So, because of that, she sniffs and tilts her chin just so. “Problem solved,” she says and, okay, it still surprises her that squirm of pleasure when he grins at her like that, already knowing that she’s about to be snarky with him. “You leave, then we don’t need a bigger bed.”

“I am wounded, Drew,” he says, but he’s grinning and his teeth are very white against skin more tanned than any of theirs. “Wounded and hurt and currently feeling very unloved. Steve, did you hear her verbally savage me? I may need sympathy make-outs, just to recover, better yet let me feel Danvers up because I need some breasts to make the hurt go away…”

He’s still running off at the mouth even as he wanders away towards the couch and, briefly, Jess sees that deep, abiding, endless affection Steve has for him on his face. Then Carol’s leaning into her personal space, apparently done playing back-and-forth with the other blonde and entirely focussed on Jess. “Baiting Tony again?” she asks, dropping a kiss on the exact corner of Jess’ mouth and she feels the absent sweep of a hand up from her waist to her shoulder and then back down again. And that’s the thing that Jess can never quite get over, how this doesn’t feel any different from when they were giving each other shit over their respective love lives and propping each other up after whatever latest evil the world needed saving from, how loving Carol Danvers and _loving_ Carol Danvers have, possibly, always been exactly the same thing all this time. So Jess just nods and tilts her eyebrows in the way she knows that Carol will be able to perfectly translate as ‘what else do you expect of me?’ and her lover, her best friend, her _person_ laughs and tangles her fingers in the belt loops over each of her hips. “Is the bed really too small? We can make Tony design us a new one. I mean, it might end up sentient and cranky, like the power shower, but if you need some more space…”

See, as much as Carol loves the closeness of tangling her legs with Tony’s and letting Steve play with her hair as he feels asleep, this is what Jess knows – that if she wanted to sleep alone, Carol would let her. That if Jess wanted to go back to her and Carol sleeping in one bed and Tony and Steve in another, Carol would agree in a heartbeat. That, in the end, there isn’t a wrong answer here, not with Carol smiling down at her with that soft, half-concerned look of hers and, over her shoulder, Jess can see Tony raising a knowing eyebrow even as he pesters Steve to a point of exasperation she just _knows_ will end with somebody giving someone else a blowjob…

“I draw the line at AI bedroom furniture, Tony,” she says, raising her voice so that she’s certain he hears her. Steve definitely did because he’s grinning, open and honest, and pinching Tony’s hipbone when he scowls too over-dramatically to be taken seriously and Carol…Carol just laughs and kisses her, languid and sweet and easy, with acceptance written in the drift of her hands down Jess’ spine and the soft curl of her tongue, effortless as breathing.

Maybe Jess _will_ give simple a go.


End file.
